The Bricklayer. Noah Boyd

though I was some “management bimbo” getting my ticket punched?’

      He smiled more completely. ‘Even though.’

      ‘I would assume that’s what most of the male street agents thought,’ she said. ‘And looking back, I’m not sure they were wrong.’

      ‘Brutal honesty, and so early in this little – what is it we’re having, some sort of sales pitch?’

      ‘At least give me the courtesy of pretending you’re being fooled,’ she said. ‘And it’s not about your performance at the bank last month if that’s what you’re worried about.’

      She was hoping to see some surprise from Vail that she knew he was the one who had disrupted the robbery, but his face had shifted into those unreadable planes she remembered from Detroit. ‘I’m not. I know they wouldn’t send someone all the way from Washington just for that.’

      ‘How’d you know I’m at headquarters?’

      ‘Five years ago, you were some “management bimbo” doing your field supervisory time. I haven’t been keeping track of the rate of promotion for women, but I would guess that’s long enough for you to be at least a unit chief.’

      ‘Actually, I was just promoted to deputy assistant director.’

      ‘Really,’ he said. ‘You must be quite the agent because someone as brutally honest as you surely wouldn’t accept a promotion simply because you’re a woman.’

      She stared back at him, slightly amused. ‘Listen, Steve, if you’re trying to convince me that you can be an SOB, I remember. You’ll also find I’m not that easy to get rid of.’

      Vail laughed. ‘A deputy assistant director. And on a roof-top in Chicago. There must be a really big problem back at the puzzle palace?’

      ‘There is something we’d like your help with.’

      ‘Unless you’ve got some bricks that need to be laid, you’re in the wrong time zone, darlin’.’

      She looked at the chimney and the tools scattered around it. ‘You have a master’s degree in Russian history from the University of Chicago. How did you wind up being a bricklayer?’

      ‘Is there something wrong with being a bricklayer?’ he asked, his tone half amused with the feigned indignation.

      ‘It just seems like there would be easier ways to make a buck.’

      ‘Fair enough. It goes something like this. First you have to get fired, and then if you wait long enough, you start getting hungry. The rest of it just kind of falls into place.’

      ‘I would have thought that you’d have looked for something a little more…indoors.’

      ‘My father taught me when I was a kid. It’s how I got through college. And if you’re going to snoop around my personnel file, please get it right. Soviet history. It’s an important distinction in case whatever brings you here depends on my ability to see into the future,’ Vail said. ‘Thus…’ He waved his hand to encompass the surroundings. ‘Actually, I kind of like the work. It’s real. There’s something permanent about it, at least in human years. Handfuls of clay being transformed into complicated structures. And then, of course, it was the only house that the wolf couldn’t blow down. Besides, there are too many bosses indoors.’

      ‘So you’re never going to take a job that has a boss?’

      ‘There’s always a boss. The trick is to never take a job you can’t walk away from. Especially when the bosses get to be insufferable, which I think is now a federal law.’

      ‘Is that what you did with the FBI, walk away when you didn’t like the boss?’

      ‘Seems like you’ve thought about it a lot more than I have.’

      ‘I’ve come with an offer that you can walk away from whenever you want.’

      He pulled the trowel out of the mortarboard and picked up a brick. ‘Then consider me walked away.’

      ‘I wouldn’t be here unless we really needed your help.’

      ‘One of the things my departure from the Bureau taught me was that the FBI will never really need any one person.’

      ‘I’m impressed. You’ve maintained a grudge for five years. You rarely see that kind of endurance anymore.’

      ‘Thanks, but the credit really should go to my father. World-class scorn was the sum total of my inheritance. Enough of it can get you through anything.’ Vail started turning over the mortar on the board again.

      ‘Do you want it in writing? The Federal Bureau of Investigation needs the particular skills of Steven Noah Vail.’

      ‘You’ll find someone else.’

      Kate stepped in front of him. ‘I know something about you that maybe you don’t even know.’

      ‘Oh good, I was wondering when we’d get around to managerial insight. Will I need something to write with?’

      ‘You have to do this.’ Her tone was not pleading but accusatory.

      He held up the brick between them. ‘I do this so I don’t have to do anything.’

      Her eyes carefully searched his face. ‘My God, you don’t know, do you? You really don’t know why you do these things. Why you have no choice but to say yes to me.’

      ‘In that case, no.’

      ‘Stop being so Vail for a minute.’

      ‘Why is “no” such a difficult concept for women? You demand we understand it the first time, every time.’

      ‘Do you know why you stopped that bank robbery?’ Ignoring her, Vail spread a bed of mortar and pushed the brick into it. ‘Because no one else could,’ she went on. ‘Everyone else in the world is running around searching for their own self-importance, and you’re cruising around ignoring yours.’ She smiled. ‘And let’s admit it, if you’re really that into revenge, what could be better than having the Bureau come crawling to you to fix some problem that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t?’

      Vail stared at her like he was seeing her for the first time. He turned and went back to work on the chimney. For the next half hour neither of them spoke. She sat down on the edge of the roof and watched him. There was an economy of movement to his work that she supposed was necessary for any task so repetitive, but still there was something about the way he did it that she found intriguing. The way his large, veined hands flipped over the bricks and found the right alignment instinctually. The way when he applied mortar, it was always the exact amount needed, never dropping any, never needing to add any. The flow never interrupted. How he was transforming perfectly rectangular bricks into a perfectly round chimney.

      The more she watched him, the more she realized he was working faster than he normally would. If the work was as rewarding as he had said, there should have been an occasional appraising touch or at least a glance when he finished a course, but instead he immediately reached for the next brick. She couldn’t tell if he was just angry with her or if he wanted to get done so that he could be rid of her for good.

      After the last brick was tapped into place and the joint scraped flush, Vail flicked the excess mortar off the trowel and then scraped both its sides on the edge of the board. She could finally see some reaction on his face. Even though the trowel was clean, he kept stropping it against the board absentmindedly. ‘What exactly is it that needs fixing?’

      ‘I’m sorry, I am not allowed to tell you.’

      ‘Who is?’

      ‘The director.’

      ‘The director?’

      ‘That’s the one.’